Why?"

"Why am I here?"
"If there is a God, why did he put me here?"
"Why do I have do deal with all these bad things in my life?
"Is there a reason or a purpose?"
"How do I know what to do with my life?"

The car trip was short. I was to simply drop off someone at their point of destination and be on my way.  As we neared the end of our brief trip, my companion who had been rather quiet up until now began asking questions such as the ones here.  We are never prepared with an answer for someone else on these matters when we are not always sure that we have found the answers for ourselves. 

After stumbling around for some moments grasping for something intelligent to say, I realized that I was beginning to sound like a bumbling idiot, even to myself as a spouted out all the often used and never understood thoughts that could provide some sensible intelligent response that would sound good, even if it could not be understood. 

After a few moments, I realized that all I could do at the moment was to tell my own story and how I came to know my purpose for being here.  What gives me direction and meaning to the things I do which are not often understood by anyone else. 

I am almost sixty-seven years old, and it was not until someone more than forty years my junior asked me about his life, did I realize the answer for myself.  It had taken me sixty-seven years to find my answer and he wanted to know his answer now.  Impossible. So, I attempted to explain this to him.  In time, only when the time is right, will he find the answer. He must be patient and wait and keep looking, and when he needs to know, he will know, 

A few days later while watching The Sound of Music on television, Maria posed the same basic question to the Mother Superior at the abbey.  She answered it so aptly in song.

Climb every mountain,

Ford every stream,

Follow every rainbow,

Till you find your dream.

A dream that will need

All the love you can give, 

Every day of your life

For as long as you live.

Often after the opportunity has passed do we realize what we should have said or what we should have done in any given situation.  I know now that I should have put more emphasis that on while being patient and waiting for an answer to the question, one must dedicate themselves to the search because it is only in finding the answer that is right for yourself can you feel complete and useful as a human being here on earth. 

As to my personal "why", I will share this with you.  My life, my being here, was an accident.  My birth, even my conception was as unplanned as any person's could have been.  There could have been no purpose or no reason for me to be here.  I was simply an accident waiting to live out my life and die and be only a memory.  As he asked his question I remembered that early in my adult life I had concluded that I had been wrong.  I was no accident.  I was here for a purpose, and all I needed to do was to find that purpose. It has been only recently that I have realized that I had been living  my purpose all along. 

Early in life when I had believed myself to have been an accident or creation, and I my attitude had changed to cause me to believe there must be a purpose, I found that in order to prove my worthiness, to prove make my life worthy of living, to justify my being born, I must do whatever I could in order to help other people in whatever opportunity would present it
self.  If I am to be here, then it must be for a reason...a good reason. 

Along the way, throughout the years, I have encountered many people who needed what I had to give them, if only in words of encouragement or trying to present a positive attitude or trying to get someone to have faith in themselves as I had to do.  It was only when  my friend asked me his question did I realize this for myself. My need to reach out to others is a bit selfish in a way because I have that need to be needed.  Only by being needed can I justify living.  Truthfully, my friend, I need you as much as you need me....maybe more. 

It has been a few weeks since I wrote this blog, but at a church service tonight that featured a combination of blue grass music and "stained-glass" more classical music the following hymn brought me back here tonight.

Further Along
Tempted and tried, we oft made to wonder
Why it should be thus all the day long;
While there are others living about us,
Never molested, though in the wrong.

"Faithful til death," saith our loving Master;
Short is our time to labor and wait; 
Then will our toiling seem to be nothing,
When we shall pass the heavenly gate.

Soon we will see our dear, loving Savior,
Hear the last trumpet sound through the sky;
Then we will meet those gone on before us, 
Then we shall know and understand why.

(REFRAIN)  Further along we'll know more about it, 
Further along we'll understand why;
Cheer up,  my brothers, live in the sunshine. 
We'll understand it all by and by.